India, there is no suggestion of any safeguard in the
interest of India against Britain. On the contrary there
is the talk of scaling down Britain's indebtedness,
If might is right, this is right. If justice and
fairplay between nations has any meaning these
proposals are a cruel mockery*
It is an iniquitous proposal to scale down Britain's
sterling indebtedness to India. The iniquity is an un-
justified use of political domination. Britain the debtor,
so far as India is concerned has valuable assets in this
country as well as abroad. She still holds in India
substantial rupee assets in the form of properties,
equities and securities. Why should not these be uti-
lised first to pay Britain's debt? The debtor, the ave-
rage Briton, is 33 times richer than the creditor, the
average Indian. Why should a rich debtor refuse to
pay a poor creditor—a creditor whom the debtor has
impoverished and whom an accident has placed in an
advantageous position?
British Government has been the parent of this
gross inflation. This inflation, as I have pointed out,
has been the result of unscrupulous use of an obvious-
ly innocent provision of the Reserve Bank of India
Act. And although the War is now over, this provi-
sion is being exploited as an instrument for further
inflation. Who produces cart-loads of currency even
now? Why was this potent seed of uncontrollable in-
flation sown in this country?
In September 1939 the currency notes circulating
in India were Rs. 182,13,17,000. In the beginning of
January 1946 the total of the currency notes in circu-
lation had risen to Rs. 1,218,34,58,000. This is an in-
crease of> about 600 per cent.
29